


The Weak

by cloakoflife



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Episode: s02e11 Fear Her, F/M, Post-Episode: s02e13 Doomsday, Reminiscing, seriously is there any other genre tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-29
Updated: 2016-03-29
Packaged: 2018-05-30 00:01:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6399511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cloakoflife/pseuds/cloakoflife
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ten/Rose with hints of Twelve/Rose. Ten knows that he and Rose are living dangerously, but he just can't seem to slow down. </p><p>Short fic based on this prompt- "We will never sleep because sleep is for the weak."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Weak

**Author's Note:**

> The series 4 reunion never happened - the last time the Doctor ever, ever saw Rose was Doomsday -- sorry! Also, slight liberties were taken with Fear Her -- again, sorry!
> 
> Once again, thank you to the world's most fantastic beta and pretty much the main reason I write-- Jennysintardis! Check out her works, she's such a talented lady.

**__The Weak**

_"We will never sleep  
Because sleep is for the weak."_

 

He has, in his possession, a photograph of them together. Well, he has a few. Not nearly as many as he’d like, but enough to half-fill the small box he keeps hidden away in a cupboard in his bedroom—as if out-of-sight could ever _really_ mean out-of-mind—but not this one. This one he keeps close to hand. It’s never in the same place. It’s dog-eared, smudged and slightly faded from centuries of knocking around all over the dusty, old TARDIS. He has to keep it safe and close because this photograph is more than just a memento.

It’s a warning. It’s a reminder.

He keeps it to ensure that he never, ever gets sloppy and careless with a human’s life again. More than that, he keeps it to prevent himself from getting emotionally involved. Oh, he makes friends, of course he does. He grows fond of Amelia and Rory; River and Clara. He has fantastic adventures with them. He laughs and he cries. But he never allows himself the same unbridled, unfettered love. His hearts simply couldn’t stand that sort of pain a second time.

***

_“How long are you going to stay with me?”_

_“Forever.”_

***

_Seven-hundred earth-years ago._

Rose mumbled incoherently as false-daylight flooded her bedroom on the TARDIS, interrupting her rather nice dreams about her and the Doctor enjoying a romantic evening on Woman Wept. The same Doctor who was now bounding into her room and jumping onto the foot of her bed like a rather over-excited labradoodle.

“Rose! Rose wake up, I’ve had a _brilliant_ idea!” he exclaimed.

“For god’s sake, don’t you ever sleep?” she asked, yawning loudly and stretching out her arms, easing the night’s aches and kinks from her body.

“Sleep?” he scoffed, “I don’t need sleep. And neither do you, Rose Tyler. Sleep is for the weak!”

She looked at her watch, the only reliable way to tell the passage of time on-board the spaceship, and moaned. “Doctor, I’ve had, like, five hours. Get _lost_!” She pulled the duvet resolutely over her head, determined to get at least another hours kip before submitting to whatever adventure or excursion he’d cooked up for them this time. She was a nineteen-year-old girl and nineteen-year-old girls were entitled to _at least_ seven hours sleep. It was her right as a human.

But the Doctor was persistent.

“Two words Rose. London. Olympics.” There was a silent pause, but he knew he had her. They both knew it really, from the moment he’d walked in the room. It’s how it had been for the last few weeks. Since Krop Tor. Since those haunting words had growled their way into their lives:

_The valiant child, who will die in battle so very soon._

Previously when she’d slept, he’d easily managed to while away the hours tinkering with the TARDIS or nipping off to ancient Rome to catch up with old acquaintances. Since the beast’s warning, however, she’d noticed a stark change in him. In some ways he was more protective of her, constantly fussing and needing to be by her side. In other ways, he’d been… almost reckless. Constantly running blindly into catastrophes and escapades, without a second thought. Throwing himself and by extension, her, into increasingly perilous conflicts without a moment’s hesitation to think of a backup plan or escape. Which, she conceded, had always been his style to an extent. But there seemed to be something more… rash and out of control about his mindless pursuit of misadventure of late then there had ever been before and she couldn’t help but think it all came back to the Satan pit.

When she’d tried to bring the beast’s words up with him, he’d brushed her off and told her it was nothing to be concerned over. That it was just the ramblings of a jumped-up, self-important, would-be-god. That they’d seen the beast off anyway, him and her, the Doctor and Rose Tyler together. _The stuff of legends._ Yet somehow his reasoning didn’t marry up with his erratic behaviour.

These days it was always the same story. Adventure after adventure, a whirlwind of running, adrenaline and excitement. She was utterly exhausted but he would never leave her to catch her breath or rest for long before he came bounding into her room with his tempting whispers of unmissable ventures.

Images of patriotically waving banners and perhaps meeting Jessica Ennis creeping unbidden into her imagination, she sighed and peeked one eye out from under the duvet. “Tell me more.”

He grinned widely, offering his hand out to her. “Why tell you when I can show you?” She smiled back at him, rolled her eyes and not-quite-reluctantly took it.

***

_“You know what, they keep trying to split us up, but they never, ever will.”_

_“Never say never, ever.”_

_“Nah, we'll always be all right, you and me. Don't you think? Doctor?”_

_“Something in the air. Something's coming. A storm's approaching.”_

***

Once they got back into the TARDIS, Rose skipped off happily to her room, no doubt to get some desperately needed shut-eye before he inevitably started to feel antsy and drag her off on yet another ill-fated journey. He shut the TARDIS door behind him, watching her float off, and leant back against it, closing his eyes despairingly. He knew he was being unfair. He knew he was wearing her out. He knew exactly how long humans needed to sleep and that he was shaving a good 20% off the recommended amount of sleep for someone of her gender and age, but he couldn’t help it. He was being unbelievably selfish but he couldn’t bring himself to stop. Every moment he was away from her felt like a lifetime. Every moment they were inside the walls of the TARDIS felt like an eternity. He’d always felt the briefness of his companions lifespans but never so keenly before her. Never so desperately before Krop Tor.

He knew he was being reckless too. They were living dangerously, he was taking unnecessary risks on a daily basis. But always he could hear the clock ticking, their moments, her life, slipping away from them. Time was running out, faster than they could ever hope to keep up and all he could do was to cram as much life, as much _living_ into the scarce time he had left with her as possible.

Suddenly he heard a knock on the door behind him. He whirled round, frowning and stepped back defensively, before opening the door just a crack. On the other side, he saw the small, smiling figure of Chloe Webber, gasping as if she’d just been running a long way.

“Why hello,” he said, giving her his toothiest—and he hoped most child-friendly—grin. “What are you doing here? It must be way past your bedtime…does your Mum know you’re here?”

She smiled up at him—rather shyly for a girl who’d been possessed by an entity which almost doomed him to an eternity as a two-dimensional cartoon character not two hours previously—and shoved a small piece of card into his hands.

Thank you,” she whispered, so quietly he wasn’t entirely sure whether he’d actually heard the words or just read them on her lips. With that, she turned on her heel and ran off again into the night.

“Err—right… goodbye then, Chloe!” he called after her, puzzled. Closing the TARDIS door again, he looked down at the piece of card in his hands. It was a photograph of him and Rose, which Chloe’s mother had taken with an instant camera during the fireworks and celebrations. Underneath, in crayon, Chloe had scribbled ‘The Doctor and Rose Tyler’ and on the back ‘thank you’. He smiled down at it. They looked so perfectly happy, alive and together. Like they didn’t have a care in the world. Like they’d always be okay.

They looked like there wasn’t a storm approaching. His expression quickly clouded over as he looked down at his likeness’ grinning face, the façade he wore like armour of late when he was around Rose. He stared at the way his arms were wrapped around her, holding her tight, betraying the truth; that he was terrified that if he loosened his hold for a second she’d be gone.

He placed the photograph on the console and bit his lip, mentally counting the hours until he could wake Rose again and find a new distraction from the mounting trepidation in his gut.

***

_“I made my choice a long time ago and I’m never gonna leave you.”_

***  
The truth was, he was reckless. He should never have let her stay with him. He should have sent her back through the void to her mother again immediately, smashing the dimension hopper to prevent her return. He was lucky, so very lucky, that Pete Tyler was the hero he wasn’t and had returned to save his daughter’s life.

He was selfish. He was so unbelievably selfish. By the time Canary Wharf had come around, she’d been running a seriously dangerous sleep deficit. It was all his fault. What made it worse is he knew, with an infallible certainty that a full strength, well-rested Rose would have been able to hold onto that lever. At least a while longer. At least for the thirty seconds more it would have taken before the breach had closed.

He was ridiculous. The oncoming storm, the timelord victorious. The stuff of legends and nightmares and everything in-between. Utterly pitiful and inadequate in front of her on a beach in Norway. In the end, he’d not been as brave as her. He’d almost killed her so many times and he’d finally succeeded. At least as far as this world was concerned, Rose Tyler was dead.

***

_Seven-hundred years later._

 He tucks the photograph away, safe in his bedside table as he clambers into bed. His face is so much older now than it had been in the picture, but it still only betrays a fraction of his years. He’s old, so old now and starting to feel it. Almost half his life has passed since he'd last seen her face. Seven-hundred years, but it felt like seven-thousand. He’d felt each and every lonely day drag by, time stretching into eternity without her. He felt old, tired and weak.

He rests his head on the cool pillow and sleeps.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Please comment or leave kudos if you've enjoyed the story, this is my first actual Doctor Who fanfiction which isn't RPF and I'd really appreciate feedback! :)


End file.
